A general complaint about political changes and new technology including steam coaches (called patent cabs).

My Grandfather's Days

Give your attention to my ditty and I'll not keep you long;
I'll endeavour for to please you if you listen to my song.
I'll tell you an ancient story, the doings and the ways,
The manners and the customs of my Grandfather's days
Of many years that's gone and past, which hundreds do say hard,
When Adam was a little boy and worked in Plymouth yard,
Here's the old ancient customs of my grandfather's days,

We had no Waterloo soldiers dressed out in scarlet clothes;
The people were not frightened by one man's long big nose.
We had not got Lord B_______ to pass the Poor Law Bill;
We had not got policemen to keep the people still;
We had not got a treading mill to dance upon and grin;
Old women in the morning didn't drink a pint of gin.

If a young man went a courting a damsel meek and mild,
And if she from some misfortune should hap to get with child,
By going to a magistrate, a recompense to seek,
They'd make the man to marry her, or pay a crown a week.
But now by the New Poor law he nothing has to pay,
Nor would he, even if he got twenty children every day.

We had not got a Maiden Queen to govern by her laws;
O'Connell(1) had not come to town to fight for Ireland's cause.
A tradesman was not known to sigh, had no reason to complain;
Colonel Evans(1) wasn't here to drag young Englishmen to Spain.
There then was none of Fieschi's gang to wheel about and prance;
They hadn't got the musket made to shoot the King of France.

In my grandfather's day, now very well you know,
They never learned to wheel about, nor learned to jump Jim Crow.
They walked, or rode on horseback, or travelled with a team;
They never thought of railroads or travelling by steam.
They travelled on the roads by day or in the morning soon;
Green(1) did not go to Holland in his great Vauxhall balloon.

With silk and with satins women didn't decorate their backs;
The sleeves upon their gowns weren't like great 'tatoe sacks.
They then had got no cabbage nets, to hide their pretty faces,
They used to mend their stocking heels, and tidy up their places;
The women after other men, did not used to jump,
They had not great bustles to fix upon their rump

There was no omnibuses for people to ride in,
There was no splendid palaces to get a drop of gin,
There was no patent cabs which make the people stare
For then they quite contented were with an old Sedan chair(1)
If you wnet unto the parish to ask them for relief
They would give you a few shillings to buy a peice of beef
But now instead of beef, I deem it very cruel
All the relief that you will get is a pint of water gruel.